He's right to do so, and this is pretty satisfying.

Worth a read.

The backstory is this: Mike Rowe (former host of "Dirty Jobs," and someone who's pro-work and pro-blue collar jobs, a notion disfavored by the tout petite bourgeousie that makes up the left's lesser chattering classes) has done an advertisement which promotes Walmart, but promotes Walmart because they have agreed to do something he believes in, and has argued for: Walmart agreed to purchase $250 billion (with a B) of American manufactured goods over the next ten years.

Note here that Rowe's goal is similar to that of many people, including those on the left, who want some kind of industrial policy (that is, government subsidization) to re-grow American domestic manufacturing. Rather than resort to government, he used (or was recruited by) a private corporation to accomplish the same goal.

Rowe, by the way, has some kind of foundation which he says pursues this basic goal.

So what's the problem? $250 billion is an enormous sum of money. Walmart would like some credit for this. Mike Rowe would like to give Walmart some credit for this, because Mike Rowe believes in buying American, and America working.

Well, the problem is this: Tribalism. The Tribe of the Left has decided that Walmart is evil, and they please their fellow tribesmen by saying Walmart is evil, and so even when Walmart pledges a $250 billion purchase of American domestic manufacturing, the dumb members of the tribe still want it explained to them how that is just awful, and the minor Priests of the tribe therefore undertake to do just that.

Basically they do that by writing snarky and uninformed blog posts about Rowe. Rowe refutes them.

Apparently a writer for CBS couldn't refrain from the Huff-Po level tribalistic attack. The writer noted that Mike Rowe had responded to a critics, “Who gives a crap about your feelings toward Walmart?”

Unfortunately, Rowe writes, “Aimee leaves out the most important part, which for the record was this: ‘For that matter, who gives a crap about MY feelings? Isn’t the business of making things in America an initiative we can all get behind?’”

But the CBS writer didn't include the full quote, preferring instead to truncate it so that it "proved" the claim made by an agitator with a group called "Jobs with Justice." Here's how that article reported it.

The ad might not have sparked such a fierce debate if another spokesman had been tapped. But Rowe, thanks to his seven-year run on "Dirty Jobs," is viewed by many as the voice of the underdog, the overworked and the underpaid. In short, the champion of the types of people working in Walmart jobs. Rowe then threw a bucket of fuel on the fire by writing on his Facebook page in response to one consumer, "Who gives a crap about your feelings toward Walmart?"

"He dismissed people's concerns," said Jobs with Justice spokeswoman Ori Korin. "As someone who has been on the side working people before, we would have hoped he would have thought twice about working for a company that is notorious for not treating its workers well."

The "mainstream media" likes to claim it's a reliable news source. They further contrast themselves with mere blogs, which lard posts with opinion and misrepresented facts mustered to establish a political point rather than something resembling the straight truth.

Oh?

Is that what us bloggers do now, eh?

Here, Cavuto shows an excerpt from the ad, and discusses it with Mike Rowe.

Mike Rowe's sin seems to be that he does more than talk -- he gets results -- and thus embarrasses the left as impotent whiners who have nothing to contribute but carping.

Corrected: I initially misunderstood and wrote that Walmart planned to "invest" in American manufacturing. They're actually pledging to buy $250 billion in American-manufactured products.

Posted by: Ace at 09:26 AM | Comments (335)
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I can't really summarize this into a headline.

A real-estate honcho and amateur painter — furious that this ex-girlfriend was dating someone else — allegedly slipped into her Tribeca apartment and drew penises on his own artwork, sources said Monday.

...

“I became unhappy when I found out she was having an affair,” Ludwick, 41, told The Post before his appearance Monday in Manhattan Criminal Court. “I augmented my work to reflect my emotions at that moment.”

Ludwick used his own key to enter Trevisan’s apartment at around 11:30 p.m. and painted yellow images “in the shape of penises” on his artwork, a Criminal Court complaint says.

Trevisan, corporate director of food and beverage at the Gansevoort Hotel Group, came home to find her apartment trashed.

“It’s all my artwork,” Ludwick said. “I’m an amateur artist, and they’re displayed in my place. I just wanted to update the pieces.”

Ludwick had previously ditched his wife and two kids to shack up with this Trevisan woman, with whom he was having an affair. When he learned that she was seeing another man (I don't know if this was "cheating" or if Trevisan had terminated the relationship), he resorted to various harassments, such as sending lewd emails to her bosses and colleagues informing them she had affairs with married men, and also noting that she is, in his estimation, a "harlot."

He was arrested last Wednesday and is charged with computer trespassing, aggravated harassment, criminal mischief, stalking, impersonation (?), and being a Bad Breaker-Upper.

By the way, the article has a picture of the woman dressed in a Sexy Santa's Helper Outfit, because, I guess, part of the state's burden in proving these crimes is answering the question "Would You Hit That?"

I think they can answer this satisfactorily, but it's not as easy a call as I might like.

Santa had no comment and referred inquiries to his lawyer.

In related news, people are just monsters, generally.

A second wave of retired New York firefighters and police was arrested on Tuesday on disability fraud charges tied to a September 11 pension fraud, said a source involved in the investigation.

A massive ongoing investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's office had, in January, led to disability fraud charges against 106 suspects - 80 of them retired New York cops and firefighters - with some accused of falsely claiming to have been traumatized by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the city.

On Tuesday, authorities rounded up 28 suspects, including 16 more retired police officers, four former firefighters, and a retired New York City Department of Corrections employee, the source told Reuters.

Vance said the total amount stolen from taxpayers could reach $400 million.

Using 9/11 as cover for a huge swindle of taxpayer generosity -- Of course.

Of course.

But before y'all Country People get to fixin' to say them city types are queer folk, I guess I should mention this, too: farmer calls cops on two men filming "Cow Porn" video with his sexiest bessies.

Open Thread.

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (500)
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Boom goes the dynamite.

But Walker breaking the rules while campaigning goes back even further, to his time as a college student at Marquette University, which the Democratic super PAC American Bridge is trying to remind people. American Bridge has been hammering Walker over the so-called John Doe scandal in recent days.

...

In 1988, Walker wanted to become president of the school's student government, known as the Associated Students at Marquette University. He was running against John Quigley, a liberal student, in a race that became incredibly contentious. Election rules said that presidential candidates could not begin campaigning until after they registered, which started on Feb. 3.

Walker, however, was caught campaigning on Jan. 24....

At the meeting, according to a student in attendance, Walker asked the fraternity members, "What can ASMU do for the Inter-Fraternity council?" and told them he intended to run for president of ASMU in a few weeks.

As punishment, the campus elections commission prohibited Walker from campaigning until Feb. 4, 7:00 p.m. -- 24 hours after other candidates were officially allowed to begin. In response, Walker said, "I found no fault in their decision. ... All it does is limit me for one day."

He said villainously.

I don't think you people understand the gravity of this situation: In college, even though Walker knew he couldn't start campaigning until February 3, he told a group of people he intended to run for office on February 3. He was assigned a one-day penalty for this grave infraction.

In related news, Rachel Maddow just emailed me: "Looks like I've got my March programming all set."

Posted by: Ace at 08:21 AM | Comments (450)
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You'll like this.

The comic John Mulaney has a joke where he describes Donald Trump this way:

At this point, like, Donald Trump is not just a rich man, Donald Trump is almost like what a hobo imagines a rich man to be.

It's like years ago Trump was walking through an alley, and he heard some guy just like, "Oh boy oh boy, as soon as my number comes in, I'll put up tall buildin's with my name on them, I'll have fine golden hair, and a tv show where I fire people with my children."

And Trump was like, "That is how I'll live my life. Thank you, Hobo, for that life-plan."

A similar observation could be made of Obama (who is in fact a rich man, thanks to two autobiographies written before he'd actually done anything, and thanks also to Tony Rezko): Obama is what struggling-to-comfortable progressives think they'd do if they became rich. "Why, if I were rich, I'd have swank parties with Sarah Jessica Parker and Anna Wintour. I'd take $100 million family vacations to Africa, because Multicultural and Teachable Moment. I'd have Paul McCartney and Melissa Etheridge play songs for my birthday, and I'd hang out with Jay-Z and Beyonce. And, whenever I was in doubt, I'd hold a conclave with Oprah and fill my Soul Canteen from her Wisdom Well."

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (276)
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Happy Tuesday.

The Becket Fund filed the Little Sisters of the Poor's opening brief in the contraception mandate accommodation case at the 10th Circuit last night. Lawgeeks, check it out (PDF). The 7th Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, just denied Notre Dame's request for a preliminary injunction in a similar case on the dubious ground, not even advanced by the Obama administration, that Notre Dame's third-party administrators have to provide the objectionable contraception coverage regardless of whether Notre Dame signs the accommodation form.

Mollie Hemingway reviews the top 12 moments of the "era of austerity."

[ RSS]

[On iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (209)
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• HuffPo's New Revelation Will End The Scott Walker Campaign Before It Begins (Not A Parody)
  
• Federal Union Goons Not Happy With The Pay Hike Obama Gave Them
  
• End Of American Military Dominance
  
• Former HHS Official "I Don't Know Who's In Charge On Healthcare
  
• Piers Morgan's Decline And Fall
  
• Two-Thirds Of Small Businesses To See Premiums Spike Under Obamacare
  
• Black Republican History
  
• Arizona Bill Before The Governor Sparks Heated Debate
  
• Piers Morgan's 10 Worst Moments
  
• Mystery Poliolike Virus Infecting Children In California
  
• Congress And America's Diverging Priorities
  
• New Italian PM Calls For Radical Change
  
• Income Inequality Greatest In Liberal Cities
  
• Dictatorship And Double Standard
  
• Dems Leading Senate Candidate In Texas Is A LaRouche Cultist
  
• Gem Found On Australian Sheep Rance Is The Oldest Known Piece Of Earth
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:45 AM | Comments (465)
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Rise of the Pink Shirts

By blog standards I would be considered fairly gay-friendly. Which really means zero-effort benevolent indifference on my part. But I'll tell you who I do hate: bigots and proto-fascists.

And the radical gay rights movement isn't even trying to hide it any more. Chloe Nelson, a particularly nasty LGBT activist, issued this manifesto on Facebook:

It's time that the LGBT community forms a new organization that targets homophobes, bigots, religious zealots, religious fanatics, and all other assholes who are against equality, and human and civil rights for all people.

By targeting these bigots, and publishing every little detail of their sex lives, or personal lives, taking pictures through their windows, and getting the pics out on the internet, showing every little thing that they do, including how they wipe their asses when in the bathroom, or for that matter if they're wiping their asses in the kitchen - we've got to catch it on camera.

...We need to start making their lives a living hell by constant observation and publishing pics and articles every time they fart, or spit, or even look cross-eyed. It's obvious these bigots only understand one thing, and that is persecution, discrimination and bigotry.

And when LGBT activists disrupted a DC press conference by conservative Christian Dr. Scott Lively (who himself seems slightly questionable regarding free-speech) they proudly declared themselves to be what they are, neo-fascists:

Upon realizing that they would not be allowed to stay, the leader of the trio, Ellen Sturtz (self-described as an"Angry Old Lesbian" on her business card) began screaming "I'm a Homo-Fascist!" and tossed a wad of leaflets in the air. They turned out to be flyers with the title "Lively is Deadly" attempting to convey the message that I am a dangerous person who wants to harm homosexuals around the world.

And Bookworm excepts this excellent comment on the defining down of 'anti-gay' thought crimes:

One thing that really gets to me about all the "gay rights" stuff is the insanity of insisting that anyone who doesn't change their beliefs as facilely as the most hardcore advocates do is evil. Holding the view that Obama had when he was elected in 2008 is now hateful and bigoted.

...Did Obama hate gays until a couple of years ago? Or do you have to change your views constantly in order to not hate gays? It's amazing that if you were an advocate for civil unions 10 years ago and are still one today then you went from loving to hating gays while standing still.

These days agreeing completely with Hillary circa-1997 on gay issues would be enough to get you boycotted and hounded out of polite society.

Also Why Putin is So Concerned About the Gheys

Compensation for the past?

Piers Morgan Stays Classy the Piers Morgan Everyone Loathes

Thanks, chaps - Slate's s**t too > RT @Slate CNN's Piers Morgan Live was rubbish. It will not be missed: http://t.co/RUBAYtoQDs

- Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 24, 2014

I wouldn't get too excited @NRA - I'm not done with you yet. #GunControlNow

- Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 24, 2014

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:37 PM | Comments (477)
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Via Instapundit, Hall & Oates' Rich Girl wasn't about a girl.

No no no, I don't mean that. Hall's girlfriend Sara Allen told him about a rich guy she'd dated, some kind of waffle house heir, and he wrote a song about the guy. But he realized "Rich Girl" sounded better than "Rich Guy." (Also, he couldn't get in the "Rich bitch" line in the fade-out ad-lib. By the way, he'd never get away with that today.)

Via @allahpundit, McDonald's is finally considering extending breakfast hours past 10:30 am. Everyone loves them some McDonald's breakfast.

This is a good piece on the Ukrainian uprising, about which I know so little.

Did you know this about Russia's future plans? Because I didn't.

The future of this protest movement will be decided by Ukrainians. And yet it began with the hope that Ukraine could one day join the European Union, an aspiration that for many Ukrainians means something like the rule of law, the absence of fear, the end of corruption, the social welfare state, and free markets without intimidation from syndicates controlled by the president.

The course of the protest has very much been influenced by the presence of a rival project, based in Moscow, called the Eurasian Union. This is an international commercial and political union that does not yet exist but that is to come into being in January 2015. The Eurasian Union, unlike the European Union, is not based on the principles of the equality and democracy of member states, the rule of law, or human rights.

On the contrary, it is a hierarchical organization, which by its nature seems unlikely to admit any members that are democracies with the rule of law and human rights. Any democracy within the Eurasian Union would pose a threat to PutinÂ’s rule in Russia. Putin wants Ukraine in his Eurasian Union, which means that Ukraine must be authoritarian, which means that the Maidan [protest movement] must be crushed.

Oh and by the way: A puppy emailed me. He says he's gonna kick your ass.

No seriously he's bringing a friend:

The dog pics via @CuteEmergency, as usual.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:53 PM | Comments (519)
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Because people are talking about it in the Open Thread, and maybe some people don't want to have it spoiled, and maybe people generally don't want to hear about ritual murder, sexual abuse, and sodomy in the Open Thread.

By the way: I'm pretty sure Justified returns tonight, with its penultimate* episode.

* "Penultimate" means "very well written."

Nope, I was wrong. It returns tomorrow. It's been off so long I forget.

Posted by: Ace at 02:48 PM | Comments (129)
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You know when I say "Read the Whole Thing?" Here's my suggestion: Don't read the whole thing.

It's not that there isn't some minor interest to parts of it; there is. But overall, it's long-winded, self-justifying, and self-indulgent.

You can read a bit of at Hot Air, but here's the part I focus on:

In the New Media culture, anything good you do is tossed in a pit, and you are measured by who you are on your worst day. What’s the Boy Scout code? Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent. I might be all of those things, at certain moments. But people suspect that whatever good you do, you are faking. You’re that guy. You’re that guy that says this. There is a core of outlets that are pushing these stories out. Breitbart clutters the blogosphere with “Alec Baldwin, he’s the Devil, he’s Fidel Baldwin.”

Broadway has changed, by my lights. The TV networks, too. New York has changed. Even the U.S., which is so preposterously judgmental now. The heart, the arteries of the country are now clogged with hate. The fuel of American political life is hatred. Who would ever dream that Obama would deserve to be treated the way he has been? The birth-certificate bullshit, which is just Obama’s version of Swiftboating. And all for the electoral nullification that seems like a cancer on the American system. But this is Roger Ailes. And Fox. And Breitbart. And this is all about hate. It’s Hate Incorporated. But the liberals have taken the bait and run in the same direction—and it’s just as corrosive. MSNBC, in its own way, is as full of shit, as redundant and as superfluous, as Fox.

Wait, we started this, and the left then imitated us?

Of course this is nonsense on stilts. I have decried this Scalp-Hunting culture myself, frequently, as infects both the left and the right.

But here's why I sometimes am conflicted about it:

The right is engaging in this defensively, as an Alinsky-style attempt to "Make them live by their own rulebooks."

The right has been savaged by these tactics for decades. It is frustration over that that I believe is responsible for so many people being unwilling to acknowledge that Ted Nugent's remarks were way over-the-line: Because they know this game is played by the left relentlessly, but the left is never (or very rarely) called to account for its own PC Speech Transgressions.

No one on the right -- or very, very few on the right -- wish this odious, toxic, censorious regime to continue.

But many on the right worry about unilateral disarmament. We know that if the left is permitted to engage in this game, without the sick rules of this game ever being turned against them, they will do so zealously and in perpetuity.

They will have no reason whatsoever to re-assess their strategy of Scalp-Hunting based on accusations of Speechcraft. (That is, witchcraft -- only the "magic words" here are not Satanic, but contrary to the PC code. And you can't be burned at the stake for Speechcraft accusations, but you can and will probably lose your job.)

I don't think that Alec Baldwin should have been fired due his own Speechcraft Trial. Not per se, I mean. In a properly-functioning civic culture, Badlwin would have been criticized, laughed at, jeered at, and made to pay a social penalty commensurate with his crime. (Which was, at the end of the day, a crime equal to about that of Ted Nugent -- he got mad, he wished to make an insult sting, and he resorted to broad slurs against large numbers of people when he should have kept his insult to his actual target.)

But that is not the regime we live under. The regime we currently live under, perpetrated by a censorious, Scalp-Hunting left, which even attacks progressive dope Piers Morgan for being insufficiently sensitive to transexuals' feelings. (Morgan's transgression consisted of asking a transexual about being a boy, before having a sex change -- this was a horrible aggression, you see, because the transexual in question believes that "she's" always been a girl.)

Here is the ultimate consequence if this ridiculous regime of ginned-up social media offense-taking and consequences-demanding is permitted to persist: We will simply wind up silencing ourselves, for fear of outraging the latest Censor On a Warpath.

I would like very much for this regime to end. I'm sure most readers believe the same thing.

But it is silly to claim this is all due to "Breitbart" and "Roger Ailes" and "FoxNews." Conservatives are very late to the politically-correct Scalp-Hunting game-- the left has been doing this for decades.

It's not the right, after all, which is siccing the IRS and a host of other government agencies on Catherine Engelbrecht.

It's not the right, in this climate of government harassment of critics, declaring that Health and Human Services should now monitor each and every social media message in America.

It's not conservatives calling for an end to academic freedom on college campuses.

It's not Republicans who are purging even the Science Fiction Writers of America of veteran members for alleged "sexism," nor who are proposing a regime of censorship in that organization's quarterly Bulletin.

The regime will come to an end when those on the left -- especially liberals who have upset by this transformation of the movement into a censorious Scalp-Hunting club but who have kept silent about it in order to keep the left/liberal alliance intact -- begin speaking up about it, and defending those accused of new Speechcraft violations, including those on the right.

I will tell you personally that I and most of the people I know are ready, willing, and dying to put this corrupt, vicious, anti-free-speech, and anti-American sport to an end.

But we can't quite do that when people like Chuck Todd are always ready to call the right's outrage "fauxtrage" or false outrage, but never willing to say the same thing about the perpetual outrage of his fellow travelers on the left.

A detente can be reached, and most on the right wish for there to be one. But this detente cannot simply be a return to the old system whereby this vicious tactic was gleefully employed by the censorious left and no one else.

It's about time that anyone interested in Free Speech -- or America -- begins telling the censors of all stripes to pipe down.

Posted by: Ace at 12:30 PM | Comments (313)
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